Ken Burns on the Complications of History (Ep. 164)

Ken, welcome.

肯，欢迎。

As a nation, what is it that we have failed to photograph adequately?

作为一个国家，我们没有充分拍摄到什么？

What you have here is the photography book that I’ve worked on in nights and weekends for years and years and years with my colleagues: One photograph per page, minimal caption; more than 250 photographs covering from the very first photograph taken in America up to more or less the present.

你这里有一本摄影书，是我和同事们多年来在晚上和周末工作的：每页一张照片，最少的标题；超过 250 张照片涵盖了从第一张在美国拍摄的照片到现在的大致情况。

Because I am in the history business and we get a little bit nervous when you get within 25 years.

因为我从事历史行业，当你进入 25 年之内时，我们会有点紧张。

And you begin to have conversations between the two photographs on the page.

然后您开始在页面上的两张照片之间进行对话。

What we do is we have back matter in which there’s a thumbnail of that photograph and a much fuller description: the photographer, the credit, other related information that might be of interest.

我们所做的是我们有回溯材料，其中有该照片的缩略图和更完整的描述：摄影师、信用、其他可能感兴趣的相关信息。

But we first wanted the photograph to have full value.

但我们首先希望这张照片具有充分的价值。

Having said that, and established sort of the raison d’être for the book, I think that there are lots of areas which our attention doesn’t go into.

话虽如此，并确定了这本书存在的理由，我认为还有很多领域我们没有关注。

It may be that the photographs are taken, they’re collected — and this is a book filled with famous photographers like Mathew Brady or Lewis Hine.

也许这些照片被拍摄了，它们被收集了——这本书里充满了马修·布雷迪或刘易斯·海因等著名摄影师。

But it’s also filled with many anonymous ones or people that we’ve never heard of, but just photographs that we’ve stumbled across in the nearly 50 years of exploring American history that we’ve done.

但它也充满了许多匿名者或我们从未听说过的人，而这些照片只是我们在近 50 年的美国历史探索中偶然发现的。

The thing I want to say about my work: no matter how much footage is in it — newsreels or whatever it might be — the still image is still the DNA of what we do.

关于我的作品，我想说的是：无论其中有多少镜头 ——新闻片或无论它是什么——静态图像仍然是我们工作的 DNA。

This has been a labor of love for me for many, many years because I wanted to honor my roots.

多年来，这一直是我热爱的劳动，因为我想尊重我的根源。

My father was a cultural anthropologist but an amateur photographer.

我的父亲是一位文化人类学家，也是一位业余摄影师。

My first memory is of him building a darkroom and developing pictures when I was two, three years old.

我的第一个记忆是当我两三岁的时候，他建造了一个暗室并冲洗照片。

It was just an amazing thing.

这真是一件了不起的事情。

Then my mentor at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I went from ’71 to ’75, Jerome Liebling — whose cover of a kid in 1949 in New York City, in front of a car, holding his jacket with a certain way — was one of the formative forces, like my father, in this respect for the still image.

然后，我在马萨诸塞州阿默斯特汉普郡学院的导师杰罗姆·利布林（Jerome Liebling）——我从 71 岁到 75 岁————他的封面是 1949 年纽约市的一个孩子，在一辆汽车前，以某种方式拿着他的夹克——就像我的父亲一样，在静态图像方面，他是形成力量之一。

He was a still photographer, even though I was a filmmaker (he’d made some films), but he helped remind me and ground me.

他是一名静态摄影师，尽管我是一名电影制片人（他拍了一些电影），但他帮助提醒我并让我脚踏实地。

Though he’s been gone — my dad’s been gone for 21 years; he’s been gone for 11 years, Jerome Liebling — they still influence me every day.

虽然他已经去世了 ——我父亲已经去世21年了；他已经离开 11 年了，杰罗姆·利布林（Jerome Liebling）——他们仍然每天影响着我。

So the book is dedicated to them, but also to this idea that even in this era of inattention, we tend to take too many pictures and not stop and permit the photograph to just be and to just communicate that complex information that I said.

因此，这本书是献给他们的，也是献给这样一个想法的：即使在这个注意力不集中的时代，我们也倾向于拍摄太多照片，而不是停下来，让照片只是存在并只是传达我所说的复杂信息。

How have photo faces in America changed over time, given all the photographs you’ve studied?

考虑到你研究过的所有照片，美国的照片面孔随着时间的推移发生了怎样的变化？

In the beginning, like painting, which was accessible mostly to the very wealthy — there was very few genre paintings in the 19th century, certainly not in the 18th century, that would sort of show ordinary life to an extent that we could really get, in painting, a photographic sense.

一开始，就像绘画一样，绘画主要是非常富有的人才能接触到的——在19世纪，尤其是在18世纪，很少有风俗画能够在一定程度上展示日常生活，达到我们在绘画中真正获得摄影感的程度。

So at the advent of photography, and because of the long exposures — beginning in 1839, the first American photograph (the same year that Louis Daguerre is working in Paris perfecting it and is the inventor of it) — you get people sort of presenting themselves to the camera with a kind of formality that feels almost Calvinistic.

因此，随着摄影术的出现，由于长时间曝光——1839年第一张美国照片诞生（同年，路易斯·达盖尔在巴黎完善了它，并且成为了它的发明者）——人们以一种近乎加尔文主义的仪式在镜头前展示自己。

As if you’re doing it — a lot of it is the way, when you had your painting done, you did it because you wanted to present your face to a God in a world that was mostly about suffering, and it was the next world where maybe there’d be some rewards.

就好像你正在这样做一样——很多时候，当你完成绘画时，你这样做是因为你想在一个主要充满痛苦的世界中向上帝展示你的脸，而这是下一个世界，也许会有一些回报。

But photography quickly developed into something that could be playful, something that could be self-reflective.

但摄影很快发展成为一种有趣的东西，一种可以自我反思的东西。

Now, in some ways, we’ve gone to the far extreme, and it’s cheapened.

现在，在某些方面，我们已经走到了极端，而且它的价格也变得便宜了。

You can be, as I do in New York City — my first film was on the Brooklyn Bridge, and I have an opportunity to walk over it two or three times a week, and I take that opportunity.

你可以像我在纽约所做的那样——我的第一部电影是在布鲁克林大桥上拍摄的，我每周有机会在桥上走两三次，我会抓住这个机会。

And it’s filled with people not taking pictures of the bridge and its magnificent latticework of cables and these great gothic stone towers and compression and the cables in tension with their network, but they’re going to themselves, or they’re putting the bridge in the background and they’re doing it.

里面挤满了人，他们没有拍摄大桥、宏伟的电缆网格、这些伟大的哥特式石塔、压缩力以及电缆与网络的张力，但他们会自己去，或者他们把桥梁放在背景中，他们正在这样做。

And there’s now another instantaneous kind of false thing, a false pose.

现在还有另一种即时的虚假事物，即虚假姿势。

I think we’ve all become perhaps too susceptible to that.

我认为我们都变得太容易受到这种影响。

You know, I take selfies if I’m meeting somebody at a talk that I’m giving and they want a picture with me — that’s fine.

你知道，如果我在演讲中遇到某人，而他们想要和我合影，我就会自拍 ——那很好。

But I don’t take selfies of myself everywhere that I go.

但我不会到处自拍。

I’d rather look at the Brooklyn Bridge and try to compose a view that I haven’t yet seen because of light, because of angle, because of disposition of photographer.

我宁愿看布鲁克林大桥，因为光线、角度、摄影师的性格，尝试构图出一幅我还没有见过的景色。

That’s where I want people to understand the real power of photography.

这就是我希望人们了解摄影的真正力量的地方。

For example: a cart moving through a city street.

例如：一辆小车穿过城市街道。

We see the photograph of that — I’ll just make up a date: 1855.

我们看到那张照片 —— 我就编个日期：1855 年。

I wanted to believe that that cart a minute or so before was out of the frame and in just a few seconds would be out on the other side of the frame.

我想相信大约一分钟前那辆小车就在画面之外，几秒钟后就会出现在画面的另一侧。

So as I was filming it, to help bring alive the past, the still photograph was an opportunity for a visual thing.

因此，当我拍摄它时，为了让过去栩栩如生，静态照片是一个视觉事物的机会。

How do you not just hold a still photograph at arm’s length and just wait till you can get some newsreels, but how do you go in and energetically explore with a roving camera-eye: the wide shot, the medium shot, the close-up, the tilt, the pan, the reveal, the insert of details?

你如何不仅拿着一张静态照片，只是等着看一些新闻片，而是如何用移动的相机眼睛积极地探索：广角镜头、中景镜头、特写、倾斜、平移、揭示、插入细节？

And then at the same time, if you were trying to will this photograph alive — “wake the dead,” my late father-in-law said of what I do for a living — you also had to listen to it.

与此同时，如果你想让这张照片活起来 —— “唤醒死者”，我已故的岳父这样评价我的谋生之道 —— 你也必须倾听它。

As I’m looking through, I’m thinking, Is the horse clip-cloppeting?

当我看着的时候，我在想，这匹马是不是在急速地奔跑？

Is the wagon jostling?

车子在颠簸吗？

Is the bat cracking or is the crowd cheering?

是球棒在响，还是人群在欢呼？

Is the cannon firing?

大炮正在发射吗？

Are the muskets ricocheting?

步枪会跳弹吗？

Even, just simply, are the leaves rustling in the trees?

甚至，只是简单地说，树叶在树上沙沙作响吗？

That has become part of the animating process: It’s not just seeing it liberated from just one focal point of view, visually, but aurally getting in and trying to understand the complexity.

这已经成为动画制作过程的一部分：不仅仅是从视觉上的一个焦点视角中解放出来，而是从听觉上进入并试图理解其复杂性。

Our soundtracks, from the beginning, have been as complex as feature films that almost rarely record full sound.

我们的配乐从一开始就像故事片一样复杂，几乎很少录制完整的声音。

They will add it on, and you have what’s called Foley artists.

他们会把它加上去，你就拥有了所谓的拟音艺术家。

They’re people who sit in these booths with cement surfaces and dirt surfaces and hard shoes and sneakers, and they make all the effects of people walking down the street, because the sound is so corrupted and they want a clean sound.

他们坐在这些水泥表面和泥土表面、穿着硬鞋和运动鞋的摊位里，他们制造出人们在街上行走的所有效果，因为声音太腐败了，他们想要干净的声音。

We’ve been applying that kind of mentality to the old photographs that are the lifeblood of what we discover and find.

我们一直将这种心态应用于旧照片，它们是我们发现和发现的命脉。

Old photographs, you see so many men in hats, or women.

老照片里，你看到很多戴帽子的男人，或者女人。

Why?

为什么？

This book is arranged chronologically from that first picture in 1839.

本书从 1839 年的第一幅画开始按时间顺序排列。

More or less every year — not all the time, and sometimes multiple pictures for a particular year, and sometimes we don’t know precisely the date, so it might be “circa 1900.” And give the location; every 50 state is represented.

或多或少每年都会出现——并非总是如此，有时某一年会出现多张照片，有时我们不知道确切的日期，所以可能是“大约 1900 年”。并给出地点；每 50 个州都有代表。

Almost all my projects are, though there are many photographs of a particular subject I have covered that’s not in that film — it’s something new that this last 10, 15 years of night and weekend work discovered.

几乎我所有的项目都是这样的，尽管我所涉及的某个特定主题的许多照片并不在那部电影中 ——这是过去 10 年、15 年的夜间和周末工作发现的新东西。

But people go through fashions.

但人们都会经历时尚。

We’re clean-shaven, and then all of a sudden everybody had a beard.

我们把胡子刮得干干净净，然后突然间每个人都留起了胡子。

Everybody had a hat.

每个人都有一顶帽子。

Fashions change.

时尚在变。

I’ve got a 1903 picture of the Royal Rooters, who were the Boston Red Sox’s — or what was the team before the Boston Red Sox would become the Red Sox — passionate rooters in the first year that they won the first World Series ever against the Pittsburgh team from the National League.

我有一张 1903 年皇家根人队的照片，他们是波士顿红袜队的球队——或者说波士顿红袜队成为红袜队之前的球队——在他们击败国家联盟匹兹堡队的第一年赢得了第一个世界大赛冠军时，他们是一群充满激情的根队球员。

They’re all men, for the most part, and they’re all wearing ties and hats and whatever.

他们大部分都是男人，都打着领带，戴着帽子什么​​的。

Now you go to a ballpark, and besides the announcers, finding someone in a coat and a tie and a kind of formality is long gone.

现在你去棒球场，除了播音员之外，找不到穿着外套、打着领带的人，那种拘谨的感觉早已不复存在。

Used to be that every football coach roaming the sideline had a hat and a coat and a tie.

过去，每个在场边漫步的足球教练都戴着帽子、一件外套和一条领带。

Now you’ve got cutoff sweatshirts and various informal things.

现在你已经有了裁剪运动衫和各种非正式的东西。

These are all the impositions, into the photographic frame, of fashion.

这些都是时尚对摄影框架的强加。

I would like to go back to Walpole, New Hampshire, in the 1870s, provided I had access to antibiotics, and to be able to enjoy my beautiful town.

我想回到 1870 年代的新罕布什尔州沃波尔，只要我能获得抗生素，并能够享受我美丽的小镇。

I’ve got pictures of it.

我有它的照片。

In fact, there’s a picture of it in the book: of a young woman standing by a country road, a track.

事实上，书中有一张这样的照片：一位年轻女子站在一条乡间小路，一条小道旁。

You can just see the wagon ruts, wheels up and grass in between, by a stone wall with some flowering trees nearby.

你只能看到马车的车辙、车轮和中间的草地，旁边是一堵石墙，附近有一些开花的树木。

It must have been nirvana, in a way, a kind of — the winters were severe; there were diseases that took people — but it was a special place.

从某种意义上说，这一定是涅槃，一种“冬天很严酷”。有些疾病夺去了人们的生命——但那是一个特殊的地方。

I’ve never had the courage to leave this place, nor do I wish to have it.

我一直没有勇气离开这个地方，也不希望拥有它。

It was where I retreated from New York City to be able to pursue historical documentary (strike one) on PBS (strike two) about American history (strike three).

在那里，我从纽约市撤退，以便能够在 PBS（第二次打击）上拍摄有关美国历史（第三次打击）的历史纪录片（第一次打击）。

Taking, I was positive back in 1979, a vow of anonymity and poverty.

早在 1979 年，我就发誓要隐姓埋名，过着贫穷的生活。

I’m very happy to say the first film that I was halfway through making when I moved up here was nominated for an Academy Award, and all of that stuff didn’t happen.

我很高兴地说，当我搬到这里时，我制作的第一部电影获得了奥斯卡奖提名，但所有这些事情都没有发生。

The great courage was actually to stay here and continue to make the films from here.

最大的勇气实际上是留在这儿并继续从这里拍电影。

And I’ve always wanted that time machine to take me back to this beautiful town and to see it and to hear those sounds I’ve imagined: the birds free of the traffic from Interstate 91, about five, three, four miles due west in Vermont.

我一直希望时光机能带我回到这座美丽的小镇，看看它，听听我想象中的那些声音：从佛蒙特州正西约五、三、四英里处的 91 号州际公路上飞过的鸟儿。

(The Connecticut River divides us from Vermont; it’s not too far away.) To hear the silence; to also hear the new set of associations and sounds that come from the bustling of skirts or the wagon wheels or the horses or some of the other things.

（康涅狄格河将我们与佛蒙特州分开；距离并不算太远。） 聆听寂静；还可以听到来自裙子的喧闹、马车的车轮、马匹或其他一些东西的新的联想和声音。

And then the things that are the same: the wind in the leaves and children laughing and playing.

然后是相同的事情：树叶中的风和孩子们的欢笑和玩耍。

This is my world.

这是我的世界。

Usually it’s like, Who would you want to meet?

通常会问，你想见谁？

I can tell you that: it would be Abraham Lincoln or Louis Armstrong or Frederick Douglass.

我可以告诉你：那将是亚伯拉罕·林肯、路易斯·阿姆斯特朗或弗雷德里克·道格拉斯。

These are hugely important — Elizabeth Cady Stanton — hugely important people that I’ve delved into.

这些都是非常重要的——“伊丽莎白·卡迪·斯坦顿”——我所深入研究的非常重要的人。

I think with that simple time machine, I just go back where I am and see what it was like in 1875, whatever it would be.

我想，有了这个简单的时间机器，我就可以回到我所在的地方，看看 1875 年是什么样子，无论它会是什么样子。

One thinks of southern hospitality, which is often just a mile wide but only an inch thick, or midwestern “nice,” which often betrays a great deal of stuff.

人们会想到南方的热情好客，它通常只有一英里宽，但只有一英寸厚，或者中西部的“友善”，它常常暴露出很多东西。

You know, what you see is what you get.

你知道，所见即所得。

So maybe the ornery is just honesty.

所以也许脾气暴躁只是诚实。

We’re always wanting — and thrilled when our government gives us access, essentially for free, or for a nominal reproduction cost if we’re ordering a photograph.

当我们的政府向我们提供访问权限时，我们总是想要——并且感到兴奋，基本上是免费的，或者如果我们订购照片，则只需象征性的复制成本。

And then other places can charge a huge amount and you want more access.

然后其他地方可能会收取巨额费用，而您想要更多的访问权限。

At the same time, I am a filmmaker making things, and I have to survive on the selling of my images — and so one understands it.

与此同时，我是一名制作电影的电影制作人，我必须靠出售我的图像来生存——所以人们可以理解这一点。

I think the protection of intellectual property rights is important, but at the same time, there’s got to be a moment where it moves into the public domain, and we have the ability to have a freer exchange.

我认为知识产权的保护很重要，但同时，必须有一个时刻，它进入公共领域，我们有能力进行更自由的交流。

Because if you think about the huge costs — and I made two big series in succession on the Vietnam War and on country music, and the budgets were in the tens of millions for those films.

因为如果你考虑一下巨大的成本的话——我连续拍了两部关于越南战争和乡村音乐的大连续剧，这些电影的预算都在数千万。

They were many-episode series.

它们是多集系列。

But a lot of that was just rights: for music, for the music publishing, for the film of that music, but also the film itself or the still photographs, often in commercial houses.

但其中很多都是正义的权利：对于音乐、音乐出版、音乐电影，还有电影本身或静态照片，通常是在商业公司。

Millions of dollars of that budget went not to inflated executive salaries — you’re looking at him — but in fact to rights.

预算中的数百万美元并没有用于虚增的高管工资——“你正在看他”——而是实际上用于维权。

We’d always love a much more inexpensive way.

我们总是喜欢一种更便宜的方式。

Then you begin to think that because of my track record and the ability — it’s never easy to raise money.

然后你开始认为，由于我的记录和能力 —— 筹集资金从来都不是一件容易的事。

Who’s not able to raise money?

谁不能筹集资金？

Who can’t tell the story that they want to tell?

谁不能讲自己想讲的故事？

That’s, I think, a really important thing.

我认为这是一件非常重要的事情。

PBS, I think, has been in the forefront of trying to figure out a way in which we can support those projects that would not heretofore in a completely unfettered marketplace be able to do it.

我认为，PBS 一直走在最前沿，试图找出一种方法来支持那些迄今为止在完全不受约束的市场中无法做到的项目。

They just wouldn’t be able to afford it.

他们就是买不起。

We’re excited about, recently, being able to hear stories that probably in another age wouldn’t be told because PBS has one foot in the marketplace, tentatively, and the other proudly out of it.

最近，我们很高兴能够听到在另一个时代可能不会被讲述的故事，因为 PBS 一只脚暂时涉足市场，而另一只脚自豪地退出了市场。

And I think I’ve spent — not think; I have spent my entire professional life making films that will be shown on PBS because that is the condition that I need to give me the artistic independence: the time it takes to do these things.

我想我已经花了 —— 不去想；我整个职业生涯都在制作将在 PBS 上放映的电影，因为这是我需要给予我艺术独立性的条件：做这些事情所需的时间。

I could easily walk over to a premium cable channel or a streaming service and get the money I need to do The Vietnam War in maybe one conversation instead of 10 years of raising money, but they wouldn’t give me the 10 years to make the film.

我可以轻松地走到一个付费有线电视频道或流媒体服务网站，也许一次谈话就可以拿到拍摄《越南战争》所需的资金，而不是花 10 年的时间来筹集资金，但他们不会给我 10 年的时间来制作这部电影。

They’d want it in a couple of years.

他们会在几年内想要它。

I wouldn’t be able to do the deep dives that I’m able to do because PBS sets a pick for me, if you will.

如果你愿意的话，我将无法进行我能做的深入研究，因为 PBS 为我设定了一个选择。

There’s not a bunch of suits giving notes.

没有一堆西装做笔记。

It’s been another, I think, important decision that I made that was the right one.

我认为这是我做出的又一个重要决定，也是正确的。

Staying in New Hampshire, living in the same house, sleeping in the same bedroom that I moved to 43 and a half years ago has made all the difference and has liberated me in a way that — maybe some of my colleagues have become richer.

留在新罕布什尔州，住在同一栋房子里，睡在 43 年半前搬到的同一间卧室里，一切都发生了变化，并以某种方式解放了我，“也许我的一些同事变得更富有了。”

I’m not sure that —

我不确定 ——

If you only measure richness by the bottom line, you’ve missed an important component of what you’re bringing up, too, which is intellectual freedom and artistic freedom, which I’ve been able to enjoy.

如果你只用底线来衡量丰富性，那么你也错过了你所提出的一个重要组成部分，那就是知识自由和艺术自由，而我一直能够享受这些自由。

The last film we released, in September, was a film called The U.S. and the Holocaust.

我们九月份发行的最后一部电影是一部名为《美国与大屠杀》的电影。

One of the things we were absolutely certain about is that we didn’t want to revictimize the victims by exploiting the images, the graphic images, of it.

我们绝对确定的一件事是，我们不想通过利用其中的图像、图形图像来再次伤害受害者。

We’re always pulling out the fuel rods of that.

我们总是把它的燃料棒拔出来。

We’re not showing, even in The Civil War series, the most gruesome photographs that way came apart.

即使在《内战》系列中，我们也不会展示以这种方式破裂的最可怕的照片。

We film them, we have them; they’re permanently etched in my brain, I’m sorry to say.

我们拍摄它们，我们拥有它们；我很遗憾地说，它们永远铭刻在我的脑海中。

They haunt me, but it is really important that we’re careful about it.

它们困扰着我，但我们对此保持谨慎非常重要。

Now it’s interesting that you brought up shots of lynching, because one of the main projects I’m working on right now is called Emancipation to Exodus.

现在有趣的是，你提出了私刑的镜头，因为我现在正在进行的主要项目之一叫做《解放出埃及记》。

Basically, from January 1, 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, through the period of the rest of the Civil War and the period known to us — misrepresented by Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind: Reconstruction, probably the most misunderstood period in American history.

基本上，从 1863 年 1 月 1 日《解放黑奴宣言》生效开始，一直到南北战争的剩余时期以及我们所知的时期——被《一个国家的诞生》和《乱世佳人：重建》曲解的时期，可能是美国历史上被误解最严重的时期。

The collapse of Reconstruction; the reimposition — the brutal reimposition — of white supremacy in the South; the building of the monuments — but, more importantly, the enforcing of Jim Crow laws and using lynching as a terrorist device by terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, through the decision in Plessy v.

重建的崩溃；白人至上主义在南方的重新确立——“残酷的重新确立”；纪念碑的建造——但更重要的是，通过普莱西诉美国一案的判决，三K党等恐怖组织实施了吉姆·克劳法并使用私刑作为恐怖手段。

Ferguson in the late 1890s to codify this discrimination and to permit it to continue.

弗格森在 1890 年代末将这种歧视编入法典并允许其继续存在。

Then finally the African American, various leaders of various kinds, like W.

最后是非裔美国人，各种不同类型的领导人，比如 W.

E.

E.

B.

B.

Du Bois or Booker T.

杜波依斯或布克 T.

Washington or Ida B.

华盛顿或艾达 B.

Wells — even Marcus Garvey, who was a separatist — to figure out what the strategies were to survive.

威尔斯——甚至是分离主义者马库斯·加维——来找出生存策略。

Then, finally, African Americans en masse beginning towards the end of the second decade of the 20th century an exodus, a Great Migration, it’s called, that took place over six decades: to move, as Richard Wright said, and enjoy “the warmth of other suns,” to get out of the brutality of Jim Crow in the South.

最后，在二十世纪第二个十年末，非洲裔美国人集体开始了一场长达六十年的大迁徙，即所谓的大迁徙：正如理查德·赖特所说，为了摆脱南方种族隔离的残酷行径，他们搬迁，享受“其他太阳的温暖”。

It’s a project I’ve been thinking about.

这是我一直在考虑的一个项目。

It’s a subject that I’ve covered in many other films, but not as rigorously.

我在许多其他电影中也提到过这个主题，但没有那么严格。

Of course, lynching and the graphic images of that will be a huge part of it.

当然，私刑及其图形图像将成为其中的重要组成部分。

It will be a moment-to-moment calibration, as it has been in every film, of what to use.

正如每部电影中一样，这将是对使用内容的每时每刻的校准。

Once you put it in, it doesn’t mean you can’t take it out.

一旦放入，并不意味着不能取出。

What we do is we make, in our town, maple syrup here, and it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.

我们所做的就是在我们的镇上制作枫糖浆，制作 1 加仑枫糖浆需要 40 加仑的树液。

That’s exactly our ratio, basically — 40 to 1 — in the films we make.

这正是我们的比例，在我们制作的电影中基本上是 — 40 比 1 — 。

That means at any given time you have 39 other gallons; for every hour of film, 39 other hours that is not going in.

这意味着在任何给定时间您还有 39 加仑；每播放一小时的电影，还有 39 个小时没有进入。

We’re constantly putting in and putting back, painfully aware of — not a line in the sand.

我们不断地投入和放回，痛苦地意识到——不是沙子里的一条线。

There’s no set moral compass; you just have to have one.

没有固定的道德指南针；你只需要拥有一个即可。

Each thing has its own moment, so you know it when you see it.

每件事都有它自己的时刻，所以当你看到它时你就知道了。

When we finish and lock our films, we unlock it not to put our thumb on the scale but to remove that thumb: to change an image, to make it less graphic, to qualify, add the “perhaps” or “some might say” or “some said” or “it was thought,” just to help us qualify so that we don’t fall into that ethical quicksand that your excellent question is alluding to.

当我们完成并锁定我们的电影时，我们解锁它不是把拇指放在秤上，而是把拇指移开：改变图像，使其不那么形象化，资格，添加“也许”或“有人可能会说”或“有人说”或“有人认为”，只是为了帮助我们获得资格，这样我们就不会陷入你的精彩问题所暗示的道德流沙。

There’s so many ways in which we transcend — the Declaration of Independence did not apply to any women.

我们可以通过很多方式超越——《独立宣言》并不适用于任何女性。

It’s 144 years after the Declaration that women get the right to vote: basic thing.

《宣言》颁布 144 年后，妇女获得了投票权：这是基本的事情。

When the Declaration and the Constitution were there, they had no rights.

当《宣言》和《宪法》存在时，他们没有任何权利。

But they were part of the landscape.

但它们是景观的一部分。

They are a majority of the population, and have been.

他们是人口的大多数，而且一直都是。

What you have is the beginning of photographs being a much more democratic and accessible medium, that is going to be populated by the people who actually exist.

你所拥有的是照片开始成为一种更加民主和易于使用的媒介，它将由实际存在的人组成。

I think it’s that that’s helpful to break down.

我认为这有助于分解。

As you see in this book, there are lots of images of women from the earliest time involved in things like abolition, involved in things like slavery unions, involved in things like women’s suffrage, involved in just playing, having a good time on the beach in Massachusetts in your bloomer swimming suits dancing, or three gals stealing a cigarette in the early part of the 19th century.

正如你在这本书中看到的那样，有很多早期女性的形象参与了诸如废奴之类的事情，参与了诸如奴隶制工会之类的事情，参与了诸如妇女选举权之类的事情，参与了玩耍，穿着灯笼裤泳衣在马萨诸塞州的海滩上跳舞的快乐时光，或者19世纪初三个女孩偷香烟的事情。

This film is about darkness and light, about black and white — both in the photographic process but in the American dynamic: there are many Native Americans, there’s lots of landscapes of the beauty of the country.

这部电影是关于黑暗与光明、关于黑白的——既在摄影过程中，又在美国的动态中：有很多美洲原住民，有很多这个国家美丽的风景。

There’s lots of horrible signs of discrimination and war and death and suffering and grief.

有许多可怕的歧视、战争、死亡、痛苦和悲伤的迹象。

And that’s us.

这就是我们。

That’s the story of us.

这就是我们的故事。

I’ve been trying to tell that complicated history with my films, and this was an opportunity to stop and allow the viewer this time to be the director.

我一直试图用我的电影讲述这段复杂的历史，这是一个停下来并让观众成为导演的机会。

That is to say, in most performance art, as film is, I set the time that you get to look at that photograph and you see what you’re able to see in that.

也就是说，在大多数行为艺术中，就像电影一样，我设定了你观看照片的时间，你会看到你能在其中看到什么。

If you want to spend an hour with one photograph in this book, you’re welcome to.

如果您想花一个小时看这本书中的一张照片，欢迎您。

If you want to go through this over-amount of time, these photographs, and then hold your thumb in the back matter and go back and forth between the full page of the photograph, that might say “Gettysburg, 1863,” and then the description of people reading the list of the dead outside a newspaper in New York City just after the Battle of Gettysburg in July of ’63 — you can learn a lot more about the photograph, but in a different way.

如果你想花这么长的时间浏览这些照片，然后把拇指放在后面，在照片的整页之间来回浏览，这可能会写着“葛底斯堡，1863 年”，然后是 63 年 7 月葛底斯堡战役后纽约市一家报纸上人们阅读阵亡者名单的描述——你可以了解更多关于这张照片的信息，但方式不同。

I first wanted the photographs to speak for themselves, un- .

我首先想让照片自己说话，而不是。

.

。

.

。

diminished — I guess, is the word — by words.

减少 ——我猜，是单词—— 单词。

I do like to point out something: I have behind me on the other end of the loft a beautiful Amish quilt.

我确实想指出一件事：我身后阁楼的另一端有一张漂亮的阿米什被子。

People like to talk in the 1930s about one of the epitomes of modernism is the bold colors and geometrical rectangles that the painter Piet Mondrian would do.

20世纪30年代，人们喜欢谈论现代主义的缩影之一，那就是画家皮特·蒙德里安（Piet Mondrian）的大胆色彩和几何矩形。

That was an apotheosis of modernism at the time.

这是当时现代主义的典范。

This quilt I have, filled with bright, geometric rectangles, almost a neon red and a neon blue, is from the 1830s — 100 years before — from the people that we en-silo and entrap and discriminate against because we think of them as simple.

我的这床被子里充满了明亮的几何矩形，几乎是霓虹红和霓虹蓝，来自 1830 年代————100 年前————来自我们圈养、诱捕和歧视的人们，因为我们认为他们很简单。

They’ve chosen not to live with electricity and a lot of things.

他们选择不与电力和其他很多东西一起生活。

We think they’re sort of frozen, and we don’t give them the artistic or the just basic human idea of having lives lived as full as we do because of the way they’ve chosen to live their lives, which is entirely their right.

我们认为他们有点被冻结了，我们没有给他们艺术的或基本的人类观念，让他们像我们一样过上充实的生活，因为他们选择了自己的生活方式，这完全是他们的权利。

There’s another religious sect not too different from the Amish called the Mennonites.

还有另一个宗教派别与阿米什派没有太大区别，称为门诺派。

I’ve got on the opposing wall, on the other end of that dark loft, a Mennonite quilt, which is one of my favorites.

我在对面的墙上，在那个黑暗的阁楼的另一端，有一床门诺派的被子，这是我最喜欢的被子之一。

But I also have quilts that we know little about.

但我也有一些我们知之甚少的被子。

I spend my life finding out the story.

我一生都在寻找这个故事。

Most of my quilts that I collect are mysteries.

我收集的大部分被子都是神秘的。

You might have a name stitched into it: “Hannah Brooks” or something like that.

你可能会在上面缝上一个名字：“汉娜·布鲁克斯”或类似的名字。

You may be able to figure out a town record that she could be somewhere 18 or 21.

你也许可以查出镇上的记录，显示她可能在 18 岁或 21 岁左右。

Is she married?

她结婚了吗？

Did she make it with anyone else?

她和别人在一起了吗？

Is it a solo project?

这是一个个人项目吗？

How long did it take?

花了多长时间？

What was life like?

生活是什么样的？

All of that is a mystery.

所有这一切都是一个谜。

The quilts become, I think, a perfect evocation of who we are.

我认为，这些被子完美地体现了我们是谁。

Of course, in this case, dating back to the beginnings of our republic, these are made by women.

当然，在这种情况下，可以追溯到我们共和国之初，这些都是由妇女制造的。

Once again, this group of people who were considered incompetent to serve on a jury, incompetent to testify at a trial, who had no rights in marriage — if you came to your marriage rich from your family, your husband automatically owned that.

再一次，这群被认为没有能力担任陪审团、没有能力在审判中作证、没有婚姻权利的人——如果你在婚姻中出身富裕，你的丈夫自动拥有这些权利。

If you divorced, you left with the clothes on your back: not your children, not any of the property you brought.

如果你离婚了，你就带着衣服离开了：不是你的孩子，不是你带来的任何财产。

All of that has begun to change, but you can see in the quilts a great evocation of who we are.

所有这一切都已经开始改变，但你可以在被子中看到对我们是谁的强烈呼唤。

In fact, coincidentally, a touring exhibition location of some of my quilts published a beautiful book that came out in September about my quilts, called Uncovered: The Ken Burns Collection.

事实上，巧合的是，我的一些被子的巡回展览地点出版了一本关于我的被子的精美书籍，名为《揭秘：肯·伯恩斯收藏》（Uncovered: The Ken Burns Collection），于九月出版。

It’s as gorgeous in full color as I think this Our America book is, and another way of getting at us in a nonverbal fashion.

它的全彩色彩绚丽，就像我认为的《我们的美国》这本书一样，也是以非语言方式接触我们的另一种方式。

That’s an element I think that we too often distrust in our general accounting of things and need to trust for us to be healthier, not just as individuals or as families but as communities and states and countries and the world.

我认为这是一个因素，我们常常不相信我们对事物的一般性解释，并且需要相信我们会变得更健康，不仅作为个人或家庭，而且作为社区、国家、国家和世界。

But more often than not, the process of learning for us is to learn contradictory and complicating information.

但更多时候，我们学习的过程就是学习矛盾且复杂的信息。

There’s undertow for every placid surface of the water.

每一个平静的水面都有一股暗流。

We’ve tried to work that in.

我们已经尝试将其付诸实践。

The quilts, though, are enigmatic and mysterious.

然而，这些被子却是神秘而神秘的。

I’m drawn to them for their design, their composition.

我被他们的设计和构图所吸引。

Then you move in and you wonder what they’re doing and you see the details of the —

然后你搬进去，你想知道他们在做什么，你会看到 的细节——

A quilt is about the stitching that is not immediately obvious.

被子是关于不立即明显的缝合的。

It’s not the things that hold the pieces together; it’s the stitching on top of that, the quilting that holds together the two sides of the quilt: the front (the art) and the backing, and then the batting in between (if it has it).

将各个部分结合在一起的并不是那些东西，而是那些东西。是上面的缝线，将被子两侧粘合在一起的绗缝：正面（艺术）和背面，然后是中间的棉絮（如果有的话）。

And so they’re just wonderful mysteries, in the way a painting might be.

所以它们就像一幅画一样，是奇妙的谜团。

For me, fabric is a way to get at an essence of a culture, even if it resists that kind of conceptualization.

对我来说，织物是一种了解文化本质的方式，即使它抵制这种概念化。

It’s a relief for me.

这对我来说是一种解脱。

I can enjoy them.

我可以享受它们。

All the quilts came back from the touring exhibition, and down underneath me are maybe 40 quilts folded up and laid out on a big, long, 14-foot table.

所有的被子都是从巡回展览中带回来的，在我身下大约有 40 条被子折叠起来，放在一张 14 英尺长的大桌子上。

To me, it’s like standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

对我来说，这就像站在大峡谷的边缘。

To me, it’s like looking at a giant sequoia.

对我来说，这就像看着一棵巨大的红杉。

To me, it’s like one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

对我来说，这就像我见过的最美丽的事物之一。

Somebody will say, “Where did this come from?” I’ll say, “Well, we think it’s Pennsylvania, Lancaster County, from the 1870s, but we don’t know.

有人会说：“这是从哪里来的？”我会说，“嗯，我们认为这是 1870 年代的宾夕法尼亚州兰开斯特县，但我们不知道。

But isn’t it beautiful?” Yes.

但不是很漂亮吗？”是的。

You take it out; you hold it up.

你把它拿出来；你坚持住。

It may be American flags and crosses made by Red Cross nurses in World War I.

可能是第一次世界大战时红十字会护士制作的美国国旗和十字架。

Just incredibly poignant and beautiful and elegant and simple, but so moving.

令人难以置信的凄美、美丽、优雅、简单，但却如此动人。

That thing behind me is not a quilt; it’s not a flag — it represents our flag, but that’s a Navajo blanket, which I got because that has to have meaning upon meaning upon meaning.

我身后的那个东西不是被子，而是被子。它不是一面旗帜——它代表我们的旗帜，但那是一条纳瓦霍毯子，我买它是因为它必须具有层层意义。

What is it to accept the people who have taken away most of your land and to build this heavy, thick thing that represents the durable symbol of that country, and yet the history of you with that country is so complex and so fraught and so filled with that kind of undertow?

接受那些夺走了你大部分土地的人，并建造这个代表那个国家持久象征的沉重而厚重的东西，而你与那个国家的历史却如此复杂、如此令人担忧、如此充满了这种暗流，这是什么意思？

That’s what I’m trying to accomplish with the book of photographs, where with the minimal captions — you can find out more if you want in the back material, as I said.

这就是我试图通过这本摄影集来实现的目标，其中有最少的标题 ——正如我所说，如果你想在后面的材料中找到更多信息，你可以找到更多信息。

But you can also just let it be, and you can understand and perhaps intuit, which is perhaps the opposite of conceptualization, intuit something that reflects or touches something emotional rather than necessarily intellectual.

但你也可以顺其自然，你可以理解，也许是直觉，这可能与概念化相反，直觉反映或触及情感的东西，而不一定是智力的东西。

It can do that as well, of course, and we can conceptualize and talk about that for hours.

当然，它也可以做到这一点，我们可以花几个小时对其进行概念化和讨论。

But at the same time, there is that moment of reception that you feel in relationship to something that you love: in your faith, in your art, in your family, in your friends — the people that mean something.

但与此同时，你会感受到与你所爱的事物的关系中的接纳时刻：在你的信仰中，在你的艺术中，在你的家庭中，在你的朋友中，在那些有意义的人中。

I’m kind of interested as much in the mysterious and the unexplainable, as I spend most of my professional life trying to explain.

我对神秘和无法解释的事物同样感兴趣，就像我职业生涯的大部分时间都在试图解释一样。

Having said that, I don’t know; you know .

话虽如此，我不知道；你知道 。

.

。

.

。

Lewis Mumford said each generation rediscovers and reexamines that part of the past that gives the present permanent — gives the present more meaning and helps us understand it.

刘易斯·芒福德说，每一代人都会重新发现并重新审视那些赋予现在永恒意义的过去——赋予现在更多的意义并帮助我们理解它。

What you see is that things get lost to time.

你所看到的是，事情会随着时间而消失。

There wasn’t a school kid at the end of the 19th century that couldn’t recite from memory George Washington’s speeches and knew everything about George Washington.

19世纪末，没有一个学生不能背诵乔治·华盛顿的演讲，并且对乔治·华盛顿了如指掌。

Now you ask a kid and they go, “First president: never told a lie.” (Not true.) “Chopped down the cherry tree.” (Not true.) “Threw a coin across the Potomac.” (Not possible.) The mythology has grown up and encrusted him.

现在你问一个孩子，他们会说：“第一任总统：从来没有说过谎。” （不是真的。）“砍倒了樱桃树。” （不正确。）“将一枚硬币扔过波托马克河。” （不可能。）神话已经长大并包裹着他。

I’m working on a history of the American Revolution right now that is trying to make him a real and dimensional figure.

我现在正在研究美国革命史，试图让他成为一个真实而立体的人物。

The joke is “George Washington slept here” now.

现在的笑话是“乔治·华盛顿睡在这里”。

It wasn’t a joke before!

之前可不是开玩笑啊！

If he spent the night in Morristown — he spent a winter in Morristown, New Jersey.

如果他在莫里斯敦过夜——他就在新泽西州莫里斯敦度过了一个冬天。

Or he was over here; he spent a night in this house outside Monmouth Courthouse — this was hugely important.

或者他就在这里；他在蒙茅斯法院外面的这座房子里住了一晚——这非常重要。

I want to try to return fair value.

我想尝试返回公允价值。

What I’m saying is that, with regard to your question about paintings, there’s going to be periods when somebody will rise up and periods when it will be less fashionable.

我想说的是，关于你关于绘画的问题，有的时候会有人崛起，有的时候会有人不那么流行。

It’s a very interesting process to watch.

这是一个非常有趣的过程。

We tend to think of the past, understandably, as fixed, but it’s not.

我们倾向于认为过去是固定的，这是可以理解的，但事实并非如此。

It’s incredibly malleable, not just as new information arises but as our perspectives change.

它具有令人难以置信的可塑性，不仅随着新信息的出现，而且随着我们观点的变化。

I like to tell people with our Vietnam film, if I’d made it 10 years after the fall of Saigon, in 1985 — America was in a recession.

我喜欢用我们的越南电影告诉人们，如果我是在西贡陷落 10 年后拍摄的，即 1985 年，美国正处于经济衰退之中。

Japan was ascendant; we are talking about everything shifting over to the Pacific Rim — Vietnam would be the symbol of our decline.

日本正在崛起；我们正在谈论一切正在向环太平洋地区转移——越南将成为我们衰落的象征。

If I’d waited 20 years, to 1995, when America was the lone superpower, we’re in the middle of what was then the biggest peacetime expansion in the history of the United States.

如果我等了 20 年，到 1995 年，当美国成为唯一的超级大国时，我们正处于美国历史上和平时期最大规模的扩张之中。

We had just won the First Gulf War with one arm tied behind our back with a coalition of dozens of other countries — we were in clover.

我们刚刚赢得了第一次海湾战争，与其他数十个国家组成的联盟绑在背后，我们欣喜若狂。

Vietnam would have significance, but would no longer be the symbol of our decline.

越南将具有重要意义，但将不再是我们衰落的象征。

You wait 30 years, to 2005: we’re bogged down in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and comparisons are being made to Vietnam.

你等了30年，到了2005年：我们在阿富汗和伊拉克都陷入了困境，并且正在与越南进行比较。

All of a sudden Vietnam has a new centrality.

突然之间，越南有了新的中心地位。

Nothing about the Vietnam War has changed.

越南战争的一切都没有改变。

It’s only we’re on a different mountaintop.

只是我们在不同的山顶。

We made ours in the teens (mostly), and it came out in 2017.

我们（大部分）是在十几岁的时候制作的，并于 2017 年发布。

It was speaking exactly to the present, and yet it was benefited from kind of averaging all those different perspectives.

它准确地表达了当前的情况，但它受益于对所有这些不同观点的平均。

It may be the future that’s pretty set — we may not know what it is!

未来可能已经注定了 ——我们可能不知道它是什么！

— but it’s the past that remains, I think, delightfully, marvelously, wonderfully malleable.

——但我认为，留下来的正是过去，令人愉快、奇妙、具有惊人的可塑性。

There’s nothing definitive.

没有什么是确定的。

Nothing I’ve ever done is definitive, nor should it be.

我所做的一切都不是确定的，也不应该是确定的。

It is always, as my principal collaborator, Geoffrey Ward, says, a conversation to be had.

正如我的主要合作者杰弗里·沃德所说，这始终是一场对话。

What you’re offering is as comprehensive a view as you (subjective) — just as this book is called Our America, which is so presumptuous: it’s my America.

你提供的观点和你一样全面（主观） ——就像这本书叫《我们的美国》一样，太自以为是了：这是我的美国。

Right?

正确的？

I’m sharing it with a spirit that we’ve lost a sense of what we share in common.

我以一种我们已经失去了共同点的感觉来分享它。

I want to share with you the complexity of my country and be able in these times of not just division but of the myopia that comes from self-selecting your information — how complex we are and how rich we are for that complexity: good, bad, and indifferent.

我想与你们分享我的国家的复杂性，并且能够在这个不仅是分裂的时代，而且是来自自我选择信息的短视的时代——我们是多么复杂，我们对这种复杂性是多么丰富：好的、坏的和冷漠的。

If you are a lover of baseball, which is the best game by far ever invented — there’s no clock; the defense holds the ball (tell me another sport in which the defense holds the ball); that it isn’t the ball scoring or the puck or the pigskin: it’s the person.

如果你是棒球爱好者，这是迄今为止发明的最好的运动 —— 没有时钟；只有时间。防守方持球（告诉我另一项防守方持球的运动）；重要的不是得分、冰球或猪皮：而是人。

Every park is different; every other place is uniform.

每个公园都不一样；其他地方都是统一的。

It’s just got so many things in it that are about speed and infinite, chess-like combinations that I just love it.

它里面有很多关于速度和无限的、像国际象棋一样的组合的东西，我非常喜欢它。

And you can live within it.

你可以住在其中。

It’s just — we’ve been told over and over again that this election has been stolen, so people believe it.

只是“——”我们被一遍又一遍地告知，这次选举被窃取了，所以人们相信了。

We have been told over and over again that this is a boring game.

我们一遍又一遍地被告知这是一个无聊的游戏。

Neither are true.

两者都不是真的。

So jazz moved to a different place.

所以爵士乐转移到了另一个地方。

But it’s always the American art form: it’s the one we’ve invented that is recognized around the world, even if we don’t recognize it at times.

但它始终是美国的艺术形式：我们发明的艺术形式得到了全世界的认可，即使我们有时不认识它。

Things change.

事情发生了变化。

As I’m saying, these habits and things matter.

正如我所说，这些习惯和事情很重要。

The fact that it isn’t malleable is part of life.

事实上，它不可塑性是生活的一部分。

It all happens and all decays.

一切都会发生，一切都会消逝。

There’s never been a period like the popular American songbook of the ’20s and the ’30s and the ’40s: nobody writes lyrics like that anymore.

从来没有一个时期像20世纪20年代、30年代和40年代那样流行的美国歌曲集：再也没有人写那样的歌词了。

These are just spectacular combinations of words and wordplay, about love.

这些都是关于爱情的文字和双关语的精彩组合。

(Now things are reduced to just slander and profanity as the substitutes.) “These Foolish Things” or “Let’s Do It” by Cole Porter or things like that.

（现在事情被简化为诽谤和亵渎作为替代品。）科尔·波特的“这些愚蠢的事情”或“让我们做吧”或类似的东西。

Nothing’s there — but they’re there.

那里什么也没有——但它们就在那里。

Mechanical reproduction permits us to live with Louis Armstrong, whose heyday in the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, and ’60s — it’s like he’s still here.

机械复制使我们能够与路易斯·阿姆斯特朗一起生活，他的鼎盛时期是二十世纪二十年代、三十年代、四十年代、五十年代以及六十年代——就像他还在这里一样。

Monday’s easy.

周一很轻松。

Today, Tuesday (we’re recording on a Tuesday), is pretty easy too.

今天，星期二（我们在星期二录音），也很容易。

It gets more complicated: Saturday is the hardest.

情况变得更加复杂：周六是最难的。

Sunday’s the biggest.

周日是最大的。

I don’t know what to do.

我不知道该怎么办。

I read various blogs after I finish the puzzle in which people are criticizing them, and I’m just going, “I enjoyed it.

完成拼图后，我阅读了各种博客，其中人们批评它们，我只是说，“我喜欢它。

It’s OK!” It’s just like film criticism.

没关系！”就像电影评论一样。

When I was in high school, I used to write a lot of film criticism.

高中的时候，我曾经写过很多影评。

As soon as I started making films in college, I didn’t buy another film book and I don’t write criticisms of stuff.

当我在大学开始拍电影时，我就没有买另一本电影书，也没有写任何东西的批评。

It’s so hard to complete a film.

完成一部电影太难了。

If you’re a crossword-puzzle collector, yes, maybe it wasn’t as good as last Friday’s, which was so super tough or so super interesting or so super fun — but I just do it.

如果你是一个填字游戏收藏家，是的，也许它不如上周五的那么好，上周五的游戏超级难，或者超级有趣，或者超级有趣 ——但我就是这么做的。

It’s part of my interior stuff.

这是我室内装饰的一部分。

It’s like somebody who has that cup of coffee in the morning that they just need and love.

就像有人早上喝了一杯他们只需要和喜爱的咖啡一样。

That’s my relationship to crossword puzzles.

这就是我与填字游戏的关系。

I wouldn’t touch them.

我不会碰它们。

I admire Will Shortz, who is the current editor of it, and I’ve talked to him a couple times, met him once or twice.

我很钦佩威尔·肖茨（Will Shortz），他是该书的现任编辑，我和他谈过几次话，见过他一两次。

I do them — I’m pretty good at them.

我做这些 —— 我很擅长这些。

And everybody tells me, “Oh, you should go to this competition,” and I go, “That would ruin it.” It’s just like — my four daughters have spent my entire life telling me, “Go on Jeopardy.” I go, “Uh-uh.

每个人都告诉我，“哦，你应该去参加这场比赛，”我说，“那会毁了它。”这就像 —— 我的四个女儿一生都在告诉我，“继续危险”。我说：“呃呃。

I love sitting with you and getting all the answers.” I don’t want to go there and ruin the experience by competing for it.

我喜欢和你坐在一起并得到所有的答案。”我不想去那里并通过竞争来破坏体验。

But at the end of the day, storytelling is storytelling is storytelling.

但归根结底，讲故事就是讲故事。

And I can tell you that when Samuel F.

我可以告诉你，当塞缪尔·F.

B.

B.

Morse developed the telegraph, people were like, “Oh, this is the death of words.

莫尔斯发明了电报，人们就像是，“哦，这就是语言的死亡。

Nobody’s going to write letters anymore.” We’ve undergone all these huge technological changes, but at the end of the day, we all, whether we are college professors writing papers for journals, whether we are kids reporting on what happened at our day or documentary filmmakers trying to understand Reconstruction — we’re bound by the same laws of storytelling: Aristotelian poetics.

没有人会再写信了。”我们经历了所有这些巨大的技术变革，但归根结底，我们所有人，无论我们是为期刊撰写论文的大学教授，无论我们是报道当今发生的事情的孩子，还是试图理解重建的纪录片制作人，我们都受到同样的讲故事法则的约束：亚里士多德诗学。

Big, fancy-schmancy, $10 phrase — but it just refers to Aristotle’s Poetics, which is an essay that people either read in high school or in college (or somehow avoid to), but it tells you there’s a beginning and a middle and an end.

宏大、奇特、花哨、价值 10 美元的短语——但它只是指亚里士多德的《诗学》，这是一篇人们在高中或大学阅读（或以某种方式避免阅读）的文章，但它告诉你有一个开始、一个过程和一个结束。

There’s characters and they have to have development.

有角色，他们必须有发展。

There’s protagonists and there’s antagonists, and there’s a climax and there’s a denouement.

有主角，就有反派，有高潮，就有结局。

There are no real laws, but everybody knows how it works.

没有真正的法律，但每个人都知道它是如何运作的。

We have to learn, with each of the ways we tell our stories, how to tell that story.

我们必须学习，通过我们讲述故事的每一种方式，如何讲述这个故事。

Yes, we’ll be bombarded.

是的，我们会被轰炸。

I’m usually very conservative about it: I waited a decade after most of my colleagues switched to computer editing around 1990.

我通常对此非常保守：在 1990 年左右，我的大多数同事转向计算机编辑后，我等了十年。

I didn’t do it till 2001.

直到2001年我才这么做。

And while they had long since abandoned shooting actual film, I didn’t abandon it until 2011 and I still will shoot film now and then to add to the thing.

虽然他们早已放弃拍摄真正的电影，但我直到 2011 年才放弃它，而且我仍然会时不时地拍摄电影来补充这一点。

What I didn’t want was the technological tail to be wagging the dog.

我不想要的是技术尾巴在摇狗。

I didn’t want to be so seduced by the fancy-schmancy stuff that you can do that you miss the fact that the introduction is great, but so does the end of the 10th episode of a 20-hour film?

我不想被那些奇特的东西所诱惑，以至于你错过了简介很棒的事实，但是一部 20 小时的电影的第 10 集的结尾也是如此吗？

That’s been really important to me: that every single moment have the same attention given to it.

这对我来说非常重要：每一刻都受到同样的关注。

That’s what we’ve maintained.

这就是我们一直坚持的。

Part of it is living in rural New Hampshire and having the time to do it and being insulated from the vagaries of things that attack that.

部分原因是生活在新罕布什尔州的乡村，有时间去做这些事情，并且免受各种变幻莫测的事物的影响。

Some of it is being wholly suspicious of technologies that might alter stuff in a way that you didn’t want it to.

其中一些是对可能以您不希望的方式改变事物的技术完全怀疑。

But at the end of the day, if you don’t know how to tell a story, it just doesn’t work.

但归根结底，如果你不知道如何讲故事，那就行不通。

Whether it’s YouTube with a kitten and a ball of string or an 18-hour series on the history of the Vietnam War — or a gigantic three-volume book about Winston Churchill, say, or whatever it might be.

无论是带有小猫和线团的 YouTube，还是关于越南战争历史的 18 小时连续剧，或者是一本关于温斯顿·丘吉尔的巨著三卷本，或者其他任何内容。

Individuals have funded us: David Rubenstein, the patriotic philanthropist; Jonathan and Jeannie Lavine from Boston, who have contributed more than anyone to our work over the years and created a prize in my name with the Library of Congress that funds other documentary filmmakers having the hard time that we all do with that last final $200,000 to finish the film, to pay the rights for the photographs that we were talking about.

个人资助了我们：爱国慈善家戴维·鲁宾斯坦 (David Rubenstein)；来自波士顿的乔纳森·拉文 (Jonathan Lavine) 和珍妮·拉文 (Jeannie Lavine) 多年来为我们的工作做出了比任何人都多的贡献，并以我的名义与美国国会图书馆设立了一个奖项，资助其他纪录片制片人，他们正面临着我们所有人都在用最后 20 万美元完成这部电影所经历的困难，以支付我们正在谈论的照片的版权。

How do you stand out and distinguish?

如何脱颖而出并脱颖而出？

It’s part of it.

这是其中的一部分。

I would say the three things I love the most are shooting — when you see something, either live or an old photograph or even in an interview, where you go, “Man, this is going to be in the film; I know it.” Then when you’re editing (because nothing edits itself), where you rewrite something or you’ve switched something around or you found a new way to tell it — there’s an exhilaration.

我想说我最喜欢的三件事是拍摄 ——当你看到一些东西时，无论是现场照片还是旧照片，甚至是在采访中，你都会说，“伙计，这将出现在电影中；我知道。”然后，当您进行编辑时（因为没有任何东西会自行编辑），您重写某些内容或更改某些内容或找到一种新的方式来讲述它  -  会有一种兴奋。

Then, finally, the question you asked — is I like the evangelical part.

最后，你问的问题是我喜欢福音派部分。

I love the fact that once we’re done with a film, it’s in a way no longer ours: it’s yours.

我喜欢这样一个事实：一旦我们完成一部电影，它在某种程度上就不再是我们的了：它是你的了。

I want to go out and be that preacher who’s converting, not the congregation or the choir, but going out and trying to get new converts to say, “This is an important subject.

我想走出去，成为那个正在皈依的传道人，不是会众或唱诗班，而是走出去，试图让新的皈依者说：“这是一个重要的主题。

I think we told this story in an interesting way.

我认为我们以一种有趣的方式讲述了这个故事。

Do you agree?

你同意吗？

Here are some clips from it.

这是其中的一些片段。

Please watch when it’s on in September.”

九月播出时请观看。”

To me, there’s no shame, I tell people, in saying — you say you’re 18 years old or you’re 22 years old; you want to be a filmmaker: you got to be able to have some means testing to go, “You know what, I don’t actually have something to say,” or “I don’t want to do this.

对我来说，我告诉人们，说“你说你是 18 岁或你是 22 岁；你说你是 18 岁”或“你是 22 岁”，这并不羞耻；你想成为一名电影制片人：你必须能够进行一些经济状况测试，“你知道吗，我实际上没什么可说的”，或者“我不想这样做。

I’d rather write a symphony or tend a garden or raise a child.” These are all admirable things to do.

我宁愿写一首交响乐、照料花园或抚养孩子。”这些都是令人钦佩的事情。

Having that courage to be able to look at yourself and understand what you can and cannot do.

有勇气能够审视自己并了解自己能做什么和不能做什么。

Then, finally, perseverance.

然后，最后就是坚持。

There are a lot more filmmakers, I’m sure, smarter than me; they just didn’t have the stick-to-itiveness to just keep going.

我敢肯定，还有很多电影制作人比我聪明。他们只是没有坚持下去的毅力。

My first film, on the Brooklyn Bridge: I was in my twenties.

我的第一部电影是在布鲁克林大桥上拍摄的：当时我二十多岁。

I looked like I was 12.

我看上去就像12岁一样。

People would say, “This child is trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge.

人们会说：“这个孩子想把布鲁克林大桥卖给我。

No. Ha ha ha.”

不，哈哈哈。”

I used to keep all the rejections for one one-hour film that filled two three-ring binders, each three or four inches thick, with literally hundreds and hundreds of rejections from that film.

我过去常常保留一部一小时胶片的所有废品，装满两个三环活页夹，每个三四英寸厚，实际上有成百上千的废品。

Used to sit on my desk to remind me of what I overcame and was able finally to do it.

常常坐在我的桌子上提醒我我克服了什么并最终能够做到这一点。

Moving up here: We calculated that I was paid less than 2 cents an hour over the five-plus years it took to get it made, in large measure because no one would take a flyer.

升级到这里：我们计算出，在制作这部电影的五年多时间里，我每小时的工资不到 2 美分，很大程度上是因为没有人会接受传单。

Back in those days, you weren’t looking for a half-million-dollar grant or a million-dollar grant, you were looking for 1,000 bucks or $2,500 to just round it out.

那时候，你不是在寻求 50 万美元或 100 万美元的资助，而是在寻找 1,000 美元或 2,500 美元来完成。

Sarah Botstein, Dayton Duncan, Geoffrey Ward, who I mentioned.

我提到过莎拉·博斯坦、代顿·邓肯、杰弗里·沃德。

I think it’s the fact that we’ve never yelled; I’ve never yelled.

我认为这是因为我们从来没有喊过；我从来没有喊过。

This isn’t brain surgery.

这不是脑部手术。

I think even in brain surgery, it doesn’t make sense to yell if somebody hands you the wrong implement.

我认为即使在脑部手术中，如果有人递给你错误的工具，大喊大叫也是没有意义的。

You just — you have to do.

你只是 — 你必须做。

We’re making documentary films.

我们正在制作纪录片。

It’s not the end of the world, and so we want to do it.

这不是世界末日，所以我们想要做到这一点。

The people who end up working with me — in Lynn’s case it’s been a little bit over 30 years; in Sarah Botstein’s case, it’s been 25 years; in Geoff Ward’s, it’s been over 40 that we’ve been working together.

那些最终和我一起工作的人——就林恩而言，已经有 30 多年了；对于 Sarah Botstein 来说，已经过去了 25 年；在 Geoff Ward’s，我们已经合作了 40 多年。

Dayton Duncan is over 30.

代顿邓肯已经30多岁了。

I have editors who are 45 years I’ve been working with — editors who’ve retired now.

我有一些编辑已经和我一起工作了 45 年——现在已经退休了。

There’s a sense of process and a sense of yielding to the process.

有一种过程感和一种屈服于过程的感觉。

I have a couple of skills.

我有几项技能。

I often have lots of credits, from music director to executive producer to producer to writer to director, whatever it might be — cinematographer — all of those things I do.

我经常有很多功劳，从音乐总监到执行制片人到制片人到作家到导演，无论是什么“电影摄影师”——所有这些我所做的事情。

But the only one that really matters is that when things are darkest, I kind of know what the next step is.

但唯一真正重要的是，当事情最黑暗时，我知道下一步是什么。

Even if that next step, the next morning I go, “Whoa, that was not so smart; let’s try this.” Everybody’s in this together.

即使下一步，第二天早上我也会说，“哇，这不太聪明；让我们试试这个。”每个人都在一起。

It’s gloriously collaborative.

这是非常出色的协作。

Lynn has just been one of the very, very special collaborations that I’ve had.

林恩是我合作过的非常非常特别的合作之一。

We’re still working together and will continue through this decade to work together.

我们仍在合作，并将在这十年中继续合作。

But I’ve kind of kicked her out and up and said, “Look, a project that I was going to do with you, with me as the boss — I’m just going to step back and be the executive producer, and you do it.” She did that on a film called College behind Bars with Sarah Botstein, where I was executive producer.

但我有点把她踢了出去，然后说：“听着，这是一个我要和你一起做的项目，我是老板 —— 我只是退后一步，担任执行制片人，然后你就去做。”她在与莎拉·伯特斯坦（Sarah Botstein）合作的一部名为《狱中学院》的电影中做到了这一点，我是这部电影的执行制片人。

We were going to do a big thing on the history of crime and punishment.

我们要在犯罪和惩罚的历史上做一件大事。

That’s now Lynn’s.

现在是林恩的了。

Sarah’s not working on it.

莎拉没有在做这件事。

Geoff Ward’s not writing it.

这不是杰夫·沃德写的。

She’s doing it, and I’ll serve as executive producer and help her as much as I can, but she won’t really need my help.

她正在做这件事，我将担任执行制片人并尽我所能帮助她，但她并不真正需要我的帮助。

That can be really important — and yet we also know the way in which it represents distraction and a lack of presence in the moment.

这确实很重要——但我们也知道它代表着当下的分心和缺乏存在感。

It’s saying that the moment’s important, but in some ways it’s forgetting the moment.

它说这一刻很重要，但在某些方面它却忘记了那一刻。

It’s like the people who take pictures of their food and then post it.

就像人们给食物拍照然后发布一样。

Do they actually taste the food?

他们真的尝过食物的味道吗？

I mean, these are important things.

我的意思是，这些都是重要的事情。

Susan Sontag wrote an amazing essay called On Photography in which she understands the negative parts of it.

苏珊·桑塔格写了一篇精彩的文章，名为《论摄影》，其中她理解摄影的负面部分。

You take a photograph: you’ve appropriated something from somebody.

你拍了一张照片：你从某人那里盗用了一些东西。

And Jerome Liebling, my teacher, would have said you are required to initiate a reciprocity as you take that photograph.

我的老师杰罗姆·利布林（Jerome Liebling）会说，当你拍摄那张照片时，你需要发起互惠。

That helps to make the exchange more equal and less — either narcissistic, in the case of selfies, or all this constant posing that we see people do.

这有助于使交流更加平等，减少自恋（例如自拍）或我们看到人们不断摆出的姿势。

Teenagers, particularly as they’re ready to post on Instagram or TikTok or whatever it might be — all places I’m blissfully ignorant of.

青少年，尤其是当他们准备在 Instagram 或 TikTok 或其他任何东西上发帖时——我庆幸对所有这些地方一无所知。

Social media is not social.

社交媒体不是社交的。

If you’ve ever been in a room of adults (let’s not blame it on teenagers), adults or teenagers, and they’re all on their phones — they’re not relating, in a way.

如果你曾经待在一个满是成年人的房间里（我们不要责怪青少年），无论是成年人还是青少年，他们都在玩手机 ——在某种程度上，他们并没有相互联系。

They’re tangentially relating.

它们是无关的。

I’m interested, as Cartier-Bresson said (the great French photographer), in the decisive moment.

正如卡地亚-布列松（伟大的法国摄影师）所说，我对决定性时刻感兴趣。

And last short question: What’s the next thing you’ll do?

最后一个简短的问题：接下来你会做什么？

The next 17 things — but pick one.

接下来的 17 件事 — 但是选择一个。

We have my daughter, one of my producing teams, and her husband in Florence for a year: We’re making our first non-American topic, on Leonardo da Vinci.

我的女儿、我的制作团队之一和她的丈夫在佛罗伦萨待了一年：我们正在制作第一个非美国主题，关于达芬奇。

We’re doing a history of LBJ and the Great Society.

我们正在研究林登·约翰逊和伟大社会的历史。

And we’re collecting interviews for a few other films that may or may not make it to a formal thing, but we’ll certainly hand off to the next generation if we don’t make it: to make films on Martin Luther King and other, I think, really, really interesting subjects.

我们正在收集其他一些电影的采访，这些电影可能会或可能不会成为正式的事情，但如果我们没有成功，我们肯定会交给下一代：制作关于马丁·路德·金和其他我认为非常非常有趣的主题的电影。

I know what I’m doing for the rest of the decade.

我知道这十年剩下的时间里我在做什么。

That’s either a glory or a prison — or more than likely, Tyler, both.

这要么是荣耀，要么是监狱——或者很可能，泰勒，两者都是。

COWEN: Ken Burns, thank you very much.

COWEN：肯·伯恩斯，非常感谢你。

Photo credit: Michael Avedon

照片来源：迈克尔·阿维登